The longer I’ve owned and operated a sign company, the more I’ve come to appreciate how much value an experienced estimator brings to the business.
What’s interesting is that it usually isn’t because they’re better at math.
It’s because they’ve seen enough projects go right and wrong that they recognize things other people miss.
That’s the part that’s difficult to replace.
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A few years ago, if you had asked me what made a great estimator, I probably would have talked about pricing, spreadsheets, markup, labor calculations, and all the things most people associate with estimating.
I still think those things matter.
What I’ve changed my mind about is how much they matter.
The more time I’ve spent around experienced estimators, the more I’ve realized that estimating is often less about calculating costs and more about identifying risk.
Anybody can learn how to calculate square footage.
Anybody can build a spreadsheet.
Anybody can apply markup.
What takes years is developing the judgment to know when something doesn’t look right.
One of the reasons this has been on my mind lately is because I’ve spent a lot of time talking with sign company owners while building Ryvet. Almost every shop seems to have a similar challenge. They’re either trying to find an experienced estimator, trying to train one, or trying to figure out what happens if their current estimator leaves.
It’s not difficult to understand why.
Most experienced estimators didn’t learn the job from a textbook. They learned it by living through hundreds or thousands of projects. Over time they develop a mental database of things that can go wrong.
They remember the permit that took months longer than expected. They remember the installation that looked easy on paper and turned into a mess on site. They remember the customer who changed everything after approving the drawings. They remember the city that required engineering when nobody expected it.
Those experiences become part of how they evaluate future projects.
The interesting thing is that most experienced estimators don’t even think about it anymore. Much of it becomes instinct.
You’ll hear comments like, “Something feels off about this job,” or “I think we’re missing something here.”
When you ask why, the answer is often surprisingly difficult to explain. It’s not because they’re guessing. It’s because their brain is connecting dots that were built over years of experience.
I’ve seen similar things with installers and fabricators. Some people can walk into a situation and immediately identify potential issues. They aren’t necessarily smarter than everyone else in the room. They’ve simply seen enough situations that certain patterns jump out at them.
Estimating works the same way.
That’s why I think many companies struggle when they try to replace an estimator with a process alone. The process can document what someone does. It’s much harder to document why they do it.
Building Ryvet has actually reinforced this idea for me.
When we first started, I thought the challenge was generating estimates. The more customer conversations we’ve had, the more I’ve realized that generating estimates isn’t the hard part.
The hard part is capturing some of the judgment that sits behind those estimates.
That’s also why I’ve become less interested in the idea of replacing estimators and more interested in helping them. The best beta users don’t blindly accept what Ryvet generates. They review it. They challenge it. They adjust it based on things they know that the software doesn’t.
That’s exactly what I’d expect an experienced estimator to do.
One beta user described Ryvet as “the other estimator we’ve been looking for.” I don’t think he meant it literally. I think what he was really saying is that it helped extend the capacity of the people he already had.
That’s a very different thing.
The sign industry has a lot of talented people in it. Estimators, installers, fabricators, project managers, and owners who have accumulated an incredible amount of knowledge over the years. The challenge isn’t that the industry lacks expertise.
The challenge is that expertise takes a long time to develop.
That’s why experienced estimators are so difficult to replace.
Not because they know how to calculate costs.
Because they know where the costs are hiding.